Building Science Vocabulary

Building Science Vocabulary
Program Transcript
ECET - Strategies New Orleans - Shelia Darjean Banks
Shelia Banks:
In pairs, I want you to identify vocabulary words. I want you to find five words that are difficult for you to understand.
Banks (Interview):
I was really interested in having students incorporate bigger segments of vocabulary into their existing knowledge. So, what I like to do is have students identify the words themselves as opposed to me standing in front of them and explicitly telling them to define this set of words.
Student:
Propogate.
Banks:
You may already know the definition of a word by looking at its root, even though you can't pronounce it. Okay? So let's focus on the words that are just completely ambiguous to us.
Banks (Interview):
I take special care to tell them to use words that are of interest to them, because sometimes it may not be what you know, it may be what you want to know.
Student:
We chose this word because we understood the beginning part, but not the other part, so we wanted to find out what the first part was. That's why I was interested in that word.
Banks:
Okay. Let me stop you right there. We're gonna focus on the beginning part of the word. Okay? Think about the word vulnerable.
Banks (Interview):
By having the students find the words themselves, we're generating not just five words, but maybe twenty-five words out of a classroom that will be brand new to most of the students.
Banks:
Okay, actually that word has come up a lot in several different groups, and I think we may have talked about it in a previous class that our bridge is a cantilever bridge, the crescent city connection, and that's probably why it refreshed something in your memory.
Banks (Interview):
If we want to increase their levels of reading and writing, um, to a higher level, that means we also need to increase the level of vocabulary. Unfortunately a lot of high school students are technically reading below their grade level, so introducing them to a higher level of vocabulary is one strategy that we can use to increase their text complexity and their reading comprehension skills.